The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-05-13
THE CROToN BUG.
Habits of the Disgusting Reaches, and How
to Exterminate Them.

Habits of the Disgusting Reaches, and How
to Exterminate Them.
The scientific name of this insect is
Blatta Germanica. 1t is of the same
family as the cockroach, but differs from
that most pestiferous insect in being
smaller, of lighter color and in not
emitting foul smelling liquid when
alarmed. 1t also seems to have much
less liking for food. The cockroaches
will take possession of a pantry and get
into every kind of food left uncovered,
especially sweet and sirupy food, but
the crOtOn bug prefers the proximity of
the sink, and seems to have no particu-
lar liking for any food but flour,
bread or other starchy substances.
The insect has been known to natural
lists in England for some time, and
they say it was first brought to that
country by Australian vessels. The in
sect is now identified with the field
roach, which in warm countries lives
out of doors, in moist wooded places.
In northern ATTITUDES, however, it seeks
a seeks a home in doors, in kitchens
and libraries, and though the true field
roach is yellow insect, the branch of
the family that has taken up domestic
life has assumed a reddish-brown hue.
The insect first appeared in New York
City shortly after the building of the
Croton water works, and from its fond
ness for the neighborhood of the water
pipes, it was believed to have come
with the water. 1t is now well-known
pest in all American cities where water
works are in existence, the water pipes
giving the bugs convenient means of
access to all houses and parts of houses,
and their shy habits and enormous
powers of reproduction making their
determination a thing impossible. The
bug has flat and oval body, with thorax
shield-shaped and antenn@ long and
thread-like. 1t is amazingly prolific,
as we have said. Its eggs are laid in a
sac, about one-fourth of an inch long
and one-eighth wide, in which thirty
small eggs are packed closely like peas
in pod. The female deposits this in
a warm place, in a crack of board
usually, where it is secure from mo-
lestation. at the end of twenty-four
or thirty hours she tears the sac open
with her feelers, and loosens the MEM
branous covering of the egg, when the
young come forth fully formed. Ow-
ing to the shyness of this insect natu-
ralists have found difficulty in study
ing its habits and housewives find
its destruction demands constant re-
search and vigilance. Every crack in
the neighborhood of stove or sink gives
it opportunity to flee from the destruc-
tive scrubbing-brush and secure ref
uge in which to rear its numerous pro-
geny. 1t has decided fondness for
libraries, where books and papers give
abundant opportunity to its hiding in
stinct, and where it is said to do much
damage to cloth-bOund volumes by
eating the starehy sizing in their COW
ers. Leather-bound books it will not
touch. As to means of determination,
the powder of the pyrethum, also called
Persian insect powder, blown into the
haunts and favorite crevices of the in
sect with a bellows or pOwder-gun, is
probably the most effectual means. 1t
is not poisonous, il simply strangles
the insect. An old roach may need
two or three doses of the powder. but
the first Whit of it is instant death to
the young ones. Borax powder and
sugar is also said to destroy these bugs,
and another remedy against them, re-
Gently announced, is paste made Of
phosphorus and starch. They are said
to be so fond of this that they will not
only devour every BIT they can find.
but viii tear up the bodies Of others to
secure the share already swallowed,
and thus exterminate themselves
Chicago Inter Ocean.